Face to Face : Masrur of Paradise & Maqrur of Fire

The gathering of wild beasts

When tent pegs are pulled out, tents spread out into the desert. Similarly, when the mountains were pulled out the earth also spread out and was left alone facing the desert. Men started to move randomly in bewilderment.

They were inclining haphazardly with the inclination of the earth. There were no mountains whatsoever; it seemed that they had been crumbled. Mankind was greatly terrified. They realized that all this was a mere start for an unprecedented day and so fearful thoughts ensued and they trembled from fear of the coming horror.

Maqrur said to himself, "O Allah! Have mercy upon us. You are the Ever-Kind"

Masrur was extremely terrified. He felt that danger was hunting him from every side. Yet there would be neither death nor comfort. When the earth was split asunder and men were driven forth from their graves, beasts and animals were also getting out and the Jinn were gathering from everywhere.

In fact, the scene of the Jinn approaching mankind from the right side was really dreadful as they appeared in their true form. But as compared to the horror of the whole scene it was of little effect. The bursting of the seas and the explosion of the mountains were actually what cast terror into their hearts. The Jinn too were greatly astonished as they used to play outdoors, in space between the stars but today everything had changed.

A huge mass of wild beasts started to gather around mankind from the left side. Their number started to increase; each moment a new group got out of the earth they bowed their heads out of fear. Actually, all kinds of beasts; lions, tigers, hawks, mountain goats, dogs, lambs and birds were being gathered together.

A group of lions approached Maqrur, and he shivered with fear. In fact, Masrur had hunted a group of lions before so he thought that among those gathered lions one of them would come to take its revenge. The lions however simply passed him and ran quickly by. Masrur noticed that among those lions there was a small mountain goat, which was running too. In spite of that the lions paid no attention to it. In addition to this the goat itself was not afraid of the lions.

Thus, it became clear that the horror of such a day had dissuaded the beasts from their beastly nature and innate instinct. Verily, the gathering of the Jinn as well as that of the wild beasts had aggravated the situation.

Masrur and Maqrur were now very close to each other. Masrur was suffering a bitter sense of fear and danger. He turned to Maqrur and asked him, "How long have we been dead? I mean how long have we lived before death? Or I mean how long have we been dead and alive?"

Maqrur replied, "Allah knows, I feel as if we had lived only few days or even a few hours. I think we had been alive for some days and we had died a few hours ago. Really I do not know."